Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships aimed to articulate the benefits of international collaboration and recommend solutions to the most pressing challenges associated with the design and operation of partnerships. This initiative sought to identify policy recommendations and best practices to mitigate challenges for international science collaborations, including physical facilities, distributed networks, and peer-to-peer partnerships.

As the economic and technological gap widened between the developed nations and the developing world, the Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, and other scientific organizations considered the feasibility of establishing an International Foundation for Science to support the research of young scientists and technical investigators in developing countries. In 1972, the IFS was established as a nongovernmental organization in Stockholm.

This project investigated the function and historical role of learned societies in advancing research and stimulating communication about scientific and scholarly ideas, not only within the intellectual community but among segments of the larger society.

This multi-disciplinary Academy initiative is focused on the urgent global challenge of climate change and recommending meaningful actions to accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for all Americans.

The Academy sponsored a conference on genetic engineering, examining both the risks and possible benefits. The resulting volume of papers concentrates on the scientific principles required to understand the issues that lie at the core of public concern and, therefore, of policy development.

This project attempted to deal constructively with the principal issues raised by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The resulting report, initially published as a double-issue of Dædalus, does not reach conclusions about the desirability or feasibility of the SDI; rather, it presents favorable, opposing, and skeptical views about the relevant scientific, technological, strategic, and political issues involved.

In 1962, the Academy received a grant from NASA to study the long-range effects of space exploration on American life. At a time when the nation was committing enormous and unprecedented financial, scientific and manpower resources to the NASA program, the Academy study was charged with investigating the potential consequences, intended and unintended, of this mobilization on various sectors of society.

In 1994, nearly one hundred university leaders, scholars of scientific research, and executives from industry convened at Stanford University to examine the nature and significance of developments in university-industry research relationships over the previous fifteen years.

This project examined how to improve the scientific community’s appreciation of public concerns about science and technology. The project reversed the more common question of public understanding of science by asking what scientists know or should know about the public and its concerns.

This study examined the global security implications of expanding commercial and military uses of space, and considered international rules and principles needed to maintain a balanced use of space over the long term.

This project investigated how environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources might contribute to social strife and conflict in many parts of the world.

Twenty two biological and social scientists from academic, research, governmental, and international institutions gathered for a symposium to discuss how the academic community might help mitigate the ravages of hunger and malnutrition worldwide.

The Academy hosted an international planning meeting to develop a proposal for a new world-class research center in Brazil that would help develop the country’s research capabilities in the life sciences.

This project brought together physical scientists, legal experts, space program directors, economists, political scientists, and policymakers from all space-faring nations to discuss how to mitigate the problem of ever-increasing quantities of man-made orbital debris in space.

Against a background of changing international politics, the Academy convened a multidisciplinary conference to analyze the direction of international security, to explore current and foreseeable sources of conflict, to examine the instruments that might be used in these conflicts, and to discuss ways that future conflicts might be mitigated.

The Academy convened a series of meetings in 2000 and 2001 to reflect on the social implications of new technologies. During those sessions, participants discussed the risks and benefits of revolutionary advances not only in genetics but also in nanotechnology and robotics.

This project assembled recognized leaders from all sectors of science, engineering, and technology to recommend policy actions to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the U.S. science and engineering research enterprise.

This study investigated the rationale, the means, and the consequences of providing high-quality primary and secondary education to all the world's children.

The Academy was instrumental in the establishment in 1970 of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya. The goal of the ICIPE is to develop more effective and less dangerous pesticides through a greater understanding of insect biology.

Using the field of chemistry as a case study, this project probed how the expansion of electronic communications is altering the collection, dissemination, and storage of scholarly information.